


Every Breath You Take I Watch You Slip Away

by doctormissy



Category: Torchwood
Genre: Angst, Cardiff, Character Death, Established Relationship, Hospitals, M/M, Post-Season/Series 02
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-10
Updated: 2016-07-10
Packaged: 2018-07-22 18:50:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,527
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7450207
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/doctormissy/pseuds/doctormissy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There's a Weevil accident and Ianto's hurt really badly, enough for Jack to take him to a hospital. He has to undergo surgery, after which he falls into a coma. Jack is desperate - he cannot lose his partner now, not after all he's been through.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Every Breath You Take I Watch You Slip Away

**Author's Note:**

> Uhhh I don't even know why I wrote this, I'm not usually that cruel :/ Really, I'm mostly fluff and happiness, IDK why I had this idea, I hated even Ianto's canonical death. But, it was surprisingly easy to write this. I warn you, angst and dying.
> 
> Title taken from my 2nd-favourite song, 'I Won't Give In' by Asking Alexandria. Music helps when I don't have any good title on mind, which is awfully often. *starts humming the song*

Jack Harkness paced round the white and bright hospital corridor smelling of disinfectant impatiently for hours. At least he thought it was hours. It might have or might have not been hours yet, although it seemed so to Jack.

At last, a doctor opened the operating theatre’s door and walked to Jack. “It was a close one. The patient suffered few severe injuries in the abdomen region and right arm and we had to stop internal bleeding from his liver. He will survive; however, there is bad news: we are not sure whether is Mr Jones going to wake up from narcosis. There is a rather high probability of falling into a coma with patients with the same range of injuries as him,” the man uttered, solemn. Jack’s facial expression suddenly roughened and became serious. He was sure he is going to stay in bed for some time, but he did not expect anything like this. What did the goddamn Weevil do to his partner?

“Can I see him?” he asked, trying to stay calm. 

“I’m afraid not, mister. He needs to rest after surgery. Give the nurse your number and she’ll inform you about his state tomorrow. Go home, he wouldn’t even know you were here,” the greying doctor in a white coat replied, looking at Jack, and then he directed him to the reception where he was supposed to report. He smiled a little.

There was nothing to smile about. How was Jack supposed to live through the night not knowing how was Ianto doing? God, he was scared as never before. This was not a usual Torchwood mission concerning catching and killing aliens. Jack’s colleague, lover and partner’s life was at stake. If what had the doctor said would be true and he fell into a coma—Jack couldn’t imagine. 

He didn’t even know what he was doing, he just mindlessly walked through the hospital to find the reception again, give one of the nurses his personal telephone number, which he rarely gave to someone, got on his car and sat in it in complete silence, not starting it up. 

He did not know what to do.

 

***

 

Next day, Jack Harkness received a call from the hospital early in the morning. He didn’t recognise the voice in the phone, and that meant it wasn’t the same nurse he gave his number to. He didn’t care about that, he only cared about the man lying at ICU. The young woman had indeed some bad news to report, just as the doctor said. Ianto Jones has not woken up yet and he is unlikely to do so in next two days. He could visit him though. Thus, Jack put his coat on, finished the third cup of coffee he had and ran to the Hub’s entrance. He needed to get to University Hospital Llandough at once. 

The same doctor from the other day was the one to allow Jack entering Ianto’s room. As he saw his partner – pale, sweaty with fever, unconscious, dressed in a blue hospital gown –, all the machines round his bed that were keeping him alive, helping him breathe and feeding him and the UV in his arm, he felt a wave of relief and anxiety at the same time.

He ran to Ianto’s bed and sat on a chair by his left side. Then he nodded at the doctor to sign him to leave the room and let Jack talk to his partner. Or, more like, say something to partner, hoping he could hear him. He took Ianto’s hot hand in his, pressed a soft kiss on it and looked at the heart monitor. Ianto’s heartbeat was steady, but he had a slightly low blood pressure. Nothing serious. He looked like he was sleeping. Technically, he was, and that was what Jack kept telling himself.

“You need to wake up because I can’t do this without you, Ianto. I don’t know how,” Jack whispered softly, leaning toward Ianto. “Please, don’t leave me. I can’t lose another friend, not after Tosh and Owen. You mean a lot to me, you know that?”

Knowing Ianto can’t respond to any of this broke Jack’s heart. He hated seeing him like this, getting about on the brink of life and death. He lived that situation hundred times himself, and he definitely did not wish for anyone close to him to experience the same as young as Ianto was. Everyone has to die one day, of course, just not that soon. He never even said those three powerful words to him, although he wanted to many times and he might never have the chance to do so now. He meant it, he meant it all. What he felt for Ianto was strong. He loved the impossible Time Lord and he certainly loved Gwen Cooper in a way, but he loved neither as much as the witty, clever, brown-haired Welshman laid in front him. 

“Please, wake up and say something. I need you, Ianto.” Jack sounded desperate. He was very close to tears by now. 

The man on the bed did not seem to register anything, as usual with comatose patients. The heart monitor beeped periodically and monotonously and Jack stopped taking it in already, it was like a lullaby to him. He shifted from his chair to sit on Ianto’s bed right next to him, never ceasing to hold his hand. He would lay his head on his partner’s chest to listen to heartbeat directly, not via the beeping of a monitor, but he decided not to, because that might hurt Ianto even more, and Jack couldn’t bear the thought. 

He just sat there next to him until he fell asleep, soothed by the sound of Ianto’s heartbeat resounding though the room. He did not have much sleep lately and he really needed it, though it was morning.

 

The first thing Jack noticed when he woke up in the afternoon was utter silence. He knew something was wrong, but he couldn’t figure out what—until he remembered the heart monitor or, more precisely, the lack of beeping. 

He jumped immediately, frightened to his bones. He turned to Ianto and pressed two of his fingers on his wrist to find pulse, because that couldn’t be right, it was just a fucking broken machine and nothing more. Ianto couldn’t be dead, no, that wasn’t true.

He did not feel any pulse, however hard he was trying to locate it. No, no, no! That couldn’t be true, it just couldn’t! Someone like Ianto, a brave Torchwood employee who fought deadly aliens every other day couldn’t die of succumbing to some slight injuries in a fucking hospital. 

What kind of hospital was it anyway that no one came in and check on Ianto’s state when he lay on a damn ICU?

 _Or did they let Jack be with Ianto because the doctor had lied and they had known he didn’t have much time left?_

Jack noticed his body—no, he—was still warm. He must have passed away just minutes ago. There could have been hope yet. Jack straightened himself, pushed away tears and tried to bring Ianto back to life by massaging his heart. 

One-two-three-four-five.

One-two-three-four-five.

One-two-three-four-five.

One-two-three-four-five.

One-two-three-four-five.

He moved to his partner’s face and gave him a long lungs-to-lungs breath that just turned into a desperate kiss. Tears started to run down his face; this time he couldn’t hold them back. He collapsed into a pile of wretched, lachrymose flesh and bones. He was not capable of doing anything at the moment. Jack Harkness has just lost his everything; the world had betrayed him and he is sure he’s going to make everyone, every single soul that has hurt Ianto, pay. 

He lay next to Ianto’s body for good ten minutes before a nurse accompanied by two physicians rushed in and pulled him away. He protested; he wanted to never leave Ianto. He could not just abandon him like that and leave him at the  
mercy of doctors incapable of taking care of their patients. He simply could not.

They had to hold him by his arms to keep him from running back to the room and to his partner. The nurse and one of the doctors led him out of the hospital, while they kept telling him to calm down and that that was a usual reaction. Bullshit. 

Jack couldn’t give up, yet he had to. It was irreversible now and the mere thought of saying it aloud made it hundred times worse. Jack had been through this many times before and he knew it was inevitable, yet the reality of it actually happening seemed so surreal. 

It couldn’t be true. 

Jack hoped it was nothing more than a dream and closed his eyes to wake up from the worst nightmare he has ever had.

He took a deep breath and reopened his eyes. But he still stood on a car park in front of a hospital in the centre of Cardiff and it really happened. Ianto Jones was dead.

He stared into emptiness, incapable of moving, and for a moment he wished he was not immortal.

**Author's Note:**

> I don't actually think Jack would give up so soon.


End file.
